


The Easiest Thing in the World

by pocketfulofposies



Category: Shall We Date?: Obey Me!
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Awkward Flirting, Awkwardness, Dramedy, Dry Humping, F/M, Guilt, Interspecies Romance, Jealousy, Loneliness, Long-Distance Relationship, Mutual Pining, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Possessive Behavior, Post-Canon, Sexual Frustration, Slice of Life, mostly gender neutral but reader is dfab
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:40:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24189037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocketfulofposies/pseuds/pocketfulofposies
Summary: "Some mornings, Belphegor wakes up with the taste of your chapstick fresh in his mouth. All he can do is lie in bed and savor it, roll it around on his tongue and try and figure out what the flavor was because he never asked and never will. Coconut—that's his best guess. Maybe piña colada. He can't be sure. Fittingly, it doesn't linger for very long, understaying its welcome just like the one who wore it. A mixed blessing, as it were. That's the most a lovesick demon can hope for."The Avatar of Sloth has been oddly diligent about keeping in touch with you since you returned to the human world...
Relationships: Belphegor (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!)/Reader, Belphegor/Main Character (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!)
Comments: 26
Kudos: 244





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> there isn't enough straight-up smut of belphegor out there like there just isn't legit guys we need 2 get on the BALL these r rookie numbers + im in love w him anyway love u bye

"And...let there be light," you proclaim, the pinkish pad of your index finger briefly eclipsing the screen when you switch your D.D.D.'s camera to the front-facing lens. 

Onscreen, Belphegor nocks an eyebrow, blinking blearily and looking rather unimpressed. You probably should have figured an actual, literal demon would not appreciate the reference. 

Then, he snorts quietly, meeting your sheepish smile with a downright wolfish grin, a playful glint striking in sleepy eyes. He makes a subtle noise that is not a laugh, but decidedly amused, nonetheless. Something between a hum and the most breathless chuckle. "I got you, didn't I? You thought I was actually mad?" He's staring directly into the camera now, lying flat on his stomach, propped up on his arms. His cheek is squished against an open palm, and his eyebags and disheveled hair might lead you to assume he had just woken up from a late-evening nap. That assumption would, of course, be correct.

You laugh a little nervously, bordering on apologetic, the kind of laugh that's really just a quick exhale of air and a slight intonation, maybe an octave higher than your usual speaking voice. It's followed by a silence, and you can't decide whether to describe it as "awkward" or "comforting," but it mostly consists of the two of you staring blankly and re-adjusting to the sight of each other. It's been a while. 

"Hi Belphie," you say—quite stupidly, he thinks. It's cute. Humans are cute.

"Mmhmm," he rumbles, low and in his throat. That isn't quite a greeting, but it will have to suffice. 

"You can see me now, right?" You gesture inwardly.

"I can." He looks you up and down again, as if to confirm this. The way your camera's positioned—balanced against a pillow and angled upward—gives him a fine view of your cleavage beneath that loose button-up shirt of pale blue cotton you wore to bed. Were he a more creative demon, or perhaps a bit more like Asmo, his imagination could really run away with this scenario, he's sure. Though his innocent smile does nothing to betray this whatsoever, he goes on to say, " _Very_ well."

The edge of his insinuation is not lost on you, but you aren't sure how you feel about it. Not altogether displeased, but a little flustered, definitely. You cross your arms and press him further, "And hear me?" 

"If I couldn't hear you, I wouldn't have answered the first question," he returns with smiling eyes and a sly little smirk. His voice is dripping with affection enough to drown you, so much you're willing to pretend his words are not at your expense. You think it does not matter what he says at all, not really, anyway—you're just happy to hear him again.

You've only heard that tired, drawling voice of his a few times since the semester ended, since you returned to what you now believe is the loneliest, dreariest apartment known to demon or man. The little things are what bother you most. You cook much smaller meals now, only for one, and the rooms are quiet and cold, and no one barges in on you while you study. Here, you never crack your bedroom door to find the Avatar of Sloth curled up in your bed, nestled under your comforter, and all your personal effects stay where where you leave them. You are finally homesafe but miss life in hell. There needs to be a word for that, you think, something like irony but worse.

You and Belphegor talk barely enough now for the both of you to tell yourselves you are keeping in regular contact, but it isn't the same. Couldn't possibly be. Phone calls with no video. Phone calls that usually end with his D.D.D. being unceremoniously yanked from his hand by any one of his brothers—but usually Mammon—cue the sound of stomping feet and bickering. This is different, more intimate. He waited for his brothers to fall asleep and holed himself up in the attic room again, door locked.

He does _not_ like locking that door, but he is willing to discomfort himself for your sake. That's what it means to love someone, he thinks. To hurt and be hurt for them.

"Now, tell me how much you missed me," Belphegor says. It is not a request.

"A lot," you reply. "Missed the sound of your voice."

"Just my voice?"

"No—everything. You in general." Even the snark, you think, but you can't bring yourself to say that part out loud. You wonder if it would sound overly familiar. How familiar is too familiar with the demon who murdered you, then kissed you later that same month? You have no experience in such things. Certainly, you had never been murdered before and can't know what is customary. Up to this point, you have only followed his lead. You've always been the type to go with the flow, and Belphegor was a coursing river, dragging you all across the Devildom by the wrist.

But, oh.

You're overthinking things. Back to the situation at hand.

You will your eyes forward, force them to stop swimming around your bedroom. There is nothing to see here, anyway. It is dark and empty, illuminated only by the device in front of you and a mostly-melted candle on your nightstand—a souvenir from the Devildom, it smells _atrocious_ , but the flame burns a lovely violet and the scent reminds you of your time there.

Who knew eye contact with a webcam could be so difficult? 

"I missed you too," he finally admits, uttering the words not unlike an admission of defeat. It's one battle he's happy to lose. He's still smiling. He'd begged you to run away with him before, start a new life with him and Beel, so you're not sure why this—hardly more than a pleasantry, from your human perspective—is so hard for him to say. You're less sure why that never happened. He isn't sure either. Both of you resent this and are unwilling to talk about it. He dumped his cards on the table that night, only to pick them back up and clutch them tight against his chest. Maybe it's a habit. It was easier for him to lie to you than it is now to tell the truth, came more naturally. That is probably a bad thing. "...so much..." he allows himself to add, voice trailing into that quiet, lethargic drawl that sounds somehow more faraway than it already is.

"How are your brothers doing?"

"That's not important," he contends, puffing up a bit. "This isn't about them." There's a sudden sharpness to his otherwise enervated voice, and all the little muscles in his face look tense, pulled taut, until he releases them on a breath, along with all the air in his lungs. "Sorry. It's fine. They're fine. I hope you didn't only call me to talk about my brothers."

"Of course not," you say. You realize you're waving your hands disarmingly, like a cornered farm-hand trying to soothe a raging bull. You don't have much experience with livestock, but you imagine that would play out with you being gored alive. "I'm just making small talk."

"Not small enough," he replies, not missing a beat. "Forget about everyone but me."

"Smaller talk, then?" 

He frowns. "Yeah."

It's weird. It's really weird. He's never been the possessive type before. He doesn't lay claim to much—a few changes of clothes, the cow-print pillow currently resting beneath his elbows, a couple unreturned library books forgotten under his bed, a secondhand game console Levi gave him just to have someone help him complete the multiplayer quests collecting dust on the shelf. He doesn't have much interest in materials or people. Greed is not his sin, neither is Lust, and he doesn't think either become him, but looking at you... 

His eyes can't help but zero in on all of his brothers pact marks on your skin. Lucifer's is the most obtrusive—gaudy and on your face. The top of Mammon's barely peeks out beneath your blouse, on your chest, over your heart. He wonders if his idiot brother meant for that to symbolize something. His own and Beel's are on either of your hands, but he does not know where the rest are and it will continue to gnaw at him until he finds out.

He has to remind himself to unclench his jaw. These emotions are as new to him as they are exhausting. He is Sloth. He is apathy. He hardly loves at all, but when he does, it is far too much. The sort of love that will crush you to death just as thoroughly as his arms did. This notion does not unsettle him nearly as much as it ought to. In fact, he finds it rather romantic.

"So, how have _you_ been, then?" you ask, deflating a bit. You were genuinely curious how his family functions on their own. You like to think you were a voice of reason, but realistically you know you were more akin to a hostage with occasional bursts of common sense. There is no reason to be found in the mind of a human so endeared to the demon who murdered them. This truth is not lost on you.

Belphegor plucks a loose strand of his hair off his pillow, spinning it in his thumb and forefinger with minimal interest, then flicks it aside. He clears his throat like he's about to present a speech, or at the very least some poignant or meaningful response, but all he says is, "Bored. Sooooo booooored..."

"You're always bored."

"Maybe," he concedes, "but it's more boring without you. Having you around gave me something to do. Or...no, actually. That sounds kinda bad. I don't mean it like that. How do I put this...?" He taps a finger on his chin with a serious expression. It's cute—like an old-timey movie detective trying to deduce who the murderer is. "Having you around made me _want_ to do things more. Now I go shopping by myself, and there's no one to wheel me around in the cart if I get tired, so I just lie down in the produce section until an employee tells me to leave. Then, I leave. Usually. It's no fun..."

"You probably shouldn't do that."

He scoffs at your suggestion. "Are you curious how the Formerly Anti-Lucifer League is faring in your absence?"

"It's—"

"You don't have to answer. I know you are." There's a ghost of a smile teasing at the edges of his lips once more, but this time it doesn't read as happy. Nostalgic, at best. He gazes down at the chipping blue polish of his nails. Not the most diligent with nailcare, they're visibly uneven and could use a trimming. You're surprised he puts in the effort to paint them at all. "The meetings are only once a week now. No more Thursday meetings."

"What about the Monday meetings?"

"Satan takes attendance, reads our credo, then we sit in silence for a half-hour until he says 'meeting adjourned.'"

You shake your head—not disbelieving, because you do believe it. That sounds about right. Somewhat vexed, perhaps. "Why does he need to take attendance if there are only two active members?"

"That's what I've been telling him. It's a 'formality,' he says. I say it's a pointless waste of time. I don't think we should even be having the meetings without you." He mirrors your head-shake, drooping a little before bouncing back with, "See how we think alike? We're really compatible, you know?"

You don't know.

You nibble at your bottom lip and reach for the water bottle on your nightstand, unsure how to answer. Your throat is suddenly very dry. Even with half-lidded eyes and an unreadable expression, you can tell he's watching your every move like a hawk—especially your lip.

_He wishes he were the one biting it._

Some mornings _,_ he wakes up with the taste of your chapstick fresh in his mouth. All he can do is lie in bed and savor it, roll it around on his tongue and try and figure out what the flavor was because he never asked and never will. Coconut—that's his best guess. Maybe piña colada. He can't be sure. Fittingly, it doesn't linger for very long, understaying its welcome just like the one who wore it. A mixed blessing, as it were. That's the most a lovesick demon can hope for.

He didn't get to taste you enough, or taste enough of you. Only that one kiss, while Beel was out of the room, and in hindsight that felt more like a goodbye than the kind of kiss he wanted to give you. Point is, it was supposed to be a new beginning and not an end, but things rarely go the way he wants them to, for better or for worse. He wonders why that is. He's wondered for a very long time. 

A shame.

You think he was an awfully good kisser, and he thinks that someday you will be too, if you just give him a bit of your time and everything that you are. He allows himself a moment to daydream about keeping you somewhere quiet, locked away from the world, where the two of you can be completely alone together, free from any responsibilities and interruptions.

Irony at its finest, your phone buzzes. Once. Twice. Three times. Four. You lean in to swipe the notifications away, one-by-one. "...rry." Your voice is muffled, obscured by the unpleasant thumping in his headset elicited by your finger on the screen.

"Someone seems to have quite a lot to say to you..."

"Yeah. Mononoke Land. The mobile game. There's a new event," you reply flippantly. "And Levi. He's telling me about the new event."

"Mmm." His eyes narrow. Seemingly with no additional comment, but you know better. 

You sigh.

"...Sorry," he says, but he doesn't mean it. Demons are never really sorry. "He was the second one you made a pact with, right? The two of you must have spent a lot of time together. While my dear brother was holding me prisoner up here, that is." With a languid flick of his wrist, Belphegor gestures to the space around him. His eyes don't follow the gesture because they don't need to. He already knows this space far too intimately for his own liking.

"Can we not do this?"

"Whatever," Belphegor mutters. There's a petulance to his low voice that serves to remind you he is the youngest brother. He is thousands of years old, but untempered and spoiled. A certain level of restraint and maturity he yet lacks. "No point in feeling jealous. You only did it for me, right? Made pacts with my brothers, I mean. You did it because I told you to."

"Belphie. Stop."

"Tell me. Tell me it was all only for me." 

"Belphie, your brothers are like family to m— "

"I'm the only family you need. Me and you and Beel. We can be a family!" He is suddenly very wide awake, that deep purple aura burning around him. 

"Then why aren't we?" you ask bitterly, and that's when you realize you aren't afraid of him anymore, not even a little bit.

He did not steal you away in the dead of the night. He did not take your hand and run away with you to start a life somewhere no one knows your names. In truth, you got home feeling rather silly for expecting the veritable Avatar of Sloth to fight for you instead of silently watching you leave just as he did. He has never even told you that he loves you, and part of you wonders if such a thing is possible for a demon. In your limited experience, demons rarely speak of love, only of _possessing_ —of being yours, of you being theirs. There's a very big difference between the two that you're not sure you're qualified to explain.

He does not answer. A silence settles between you that you do not want.

"It's really hard to talk to you sometimes," you cut in. 

"I know it is," he says, deflating. There is a flicker of something genuine in his voice—guilt, maybe. Not remorse. He doesn't understand the difference between the two. You have made peace with this. "But I want you to keep doing it, until it isn't anymore." The fact that you kissed him, that you take the time to schedule these calls with him—that should be enough for him. It should be, but it isn't. Nothing will ever be enough for him. "Keep doing it until it's the easiest thing in the world."

* * *

There are 148 planks of wood comprising the attic room's flooring, eight shelves lined with innumerable tiny little shreds of paper too small to be counted, a broken phonograph, and the black, withered remains of the most neglected houseplant in all the three worlds. Belphegor knows because he counted them while his brothers downstairs busied themselves playing video games and cozying up to you. It's enough to make his skin crawl.

(The paper used to be books, Belphegor notes, but he ripped them up his first day imprisoned here. He thinks he was trying to make a statement of some kind, but he wishes he hadn't, because it left him with even less to do.

"Don't cut off your nose to spite your face," Lucifer would tell him.

"Then come a little closer, dear brother, and let me cut off yours."

"You insist upon making this more difficult for yourself than it needs to be. This is a hell of your own making." Lucifer would sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose as though he felt a migraine coming on, with his usual demeanor of haughtiness and resignation. Though, whenever Belphegor awoke the next morning, there would always be more books left out for him.

He ripped those ones up too, of course, but he would in secret desperately try to order the pages and piece them back together before he would admit Lucifer was right. Maybe because the one he was so angry at loved him made the act of hurting himself seem revolutionary. It wasn't. It wasn't revolutionary.)

Frustrated, he tosses his D.D.D. to the side hard enough to crack the screen, were it a device made for human hands. In fact, it still might have. He rolls over and fishes around for it in the dark. Scuffed, but still in tact. Good enough.

You're not online right now, so it doesn't really matter to him, either way.

Little by little, Belphegor is coming to realize he is very good at making himself miserable, better than anyone else. All he has to do is stay up too late or remember too much or think about his brother's pact marks marring your skin, and right now he is doing all three simultaneously. 

He'll steal them from his brothers someday, he thinks—the pact marks, and you. Nip at your skin, trace over them with his lips and tongue, until they've been drained of all other attachments and remind you of no one but him. He can do that. He knows he can. Belphegor closes his eyes and pictures you in bed beside him, aflush and delectably disheveled, hair sex-mussed and skin shining with sweat. His cheeks grow warm and red at the thought of your lips crooning his name either like a curse or a prayer—same difference, to a demon.

There's a familiar stirring in his loins, and all he can think is _ugh._ Just _ugh_. In an ideal world, he could make this your problem, but the world is not ideal and presently the two of you do not inhabit the same one at all. And you're probably still upset with him, he acknowledges.

Belphegor sighs, like it's the most laborious task in the world, untangling himself from the twisted, mismatched bedsheets and forcing himself upright on his knees. He takes a steady breath, eyes heavy and hands unsure. Experimentally, he straddles his pillow—the white, fluffy one he shared a nap with you on. Much to his dismay, it doesn't smell like you anymore, and this isn't the first time he's agonized over this. It's soft still, resembling fleece, a pleasant friction against his clothed sex.

He's semi-hard already, but rocks his hips, slow and half-hearted. He grunts, squeezing his muscled thighs around the pillow tighter. A hand slips downwards and curls his fingers around his dick, stroking it fully erect. He lets it catch in the elastic waistband of his underwear, head glistening and nestled beneath his navel.

This isn't enough, groaning pitifully. It's not you. There's not enough of you left for him here. His eyes squeeze shut tighter, and he replays your voice in his head at the start of your call when you were smiling at him still, fixates on the way you chewed your lip, easing over the pinkened, plump flesh with your tongue. He can think of at least a hundred things he'd rather you be doing with those lips and that tongue.

He leans forward, trapping his cock between his navel and the fabric, thrusting quicker, breathing quicker, if only for this to be over and done with so he can finally sleep—that's the lie he keeps telling himself, the most obvious of many. Wishful thinking, he knows. He'll surely be up all night again, thinking of you, as he often is. It's fine, he supposes. Fine, if not inevitable.

He'll be tired in the morning, but he's always tired, anyways.


	2. Chapter 2

From the moment Belphegor's eyes blink open, it is abundantly clear that it is not his morning. Or afternoon, perhaps. He wouldn't even rule out the possibility that he slept late into the evening. He groans, making enemies with the very concept of time itself, and gropes around at his side for his D.D.D. without turning over. Cold in his palm, his squinty tired eyes and bedhead reflected back at him on its little black screen set the mood for the rest of the day. He clicks the power button and—

Dead.

Of course it is dead.

He fell asleep in the attic last night staring at it, debating whether or not to send you "good night," and there are no charger outlets up here—one of the many, many things he despises about this space. He needs to leave. Normally, Beel wakes him up in time for breakfast, gently shaking his shoulder with a placid "good morning Belphie" muffled by one or two energy bars stuffed in his mouth. It's comforting, he thinks, but he was too tired to walk back downstairs to his and Beel's room after your call turned sour. Still, this—waking up in _here_ of all places, alone, with the door locked, unsure what time of day it is—is downright unnerving. 

Belphegor forces himself out of bed, already dead on his feet, and drags himself to the dining room table with the same inelegance as a killer dragging a corpse to its unmarked grave, and with the same general attitude about the ordeal too. _Wonderful,_ he thinks—Levi is the only one left sitting at the dining table. He doesn't greet him, doesn't seem to notice him at all, eyes transfixed on the sleek handheld game he's clutching. The low, incessant sound of fingers joylessly mashing the buttons and droning background music gives Belphie half a mind to yank it from his brother's grubby little hands and smash it, but he doesn't.

Belphie pulls his chair out so that it drags across the hardwood tile and makes the loudest, most grating noise possible, finally drawing Levi's eyes to him for the briefest of moments. " _Nani?_ "

"What?"

"Yeah, that's what I said."

"Forget it," he grumbles, shaking his head. He doesn't care enough to continue. "This is why you don't have any friends."

"No friends, huh?" Levi returns with such confidence that Belphie grows a little wary, arching his brow. "I'm about to grind Fiero up to level twenty-five intimacy and unlock a spicy cutscene. I've been giving him his favorite spicy mushroom pasta which I had to grow in my own garden, even though Fire Mushroom spores are a super rare drop that take two in-game weeks to cultivate." Then he returns his focus to the game, cranking up the volume.

Furrowing his brow, Belphie takes a moment to reconcile himself to the fact that this is the demon he was so jealous of last night. He releases some tension on a breath and rests his elbow on the table, crumbs and inky, syrupy residue collecting on his sleeve from the mess Beel made before him. There are several licked-clean plates stacked on top of each other, a half-gallon jug of goat's milk with only a few droplets clinging to the inside, a fork missing a prong—whereas, a cold mug of instant coffee and a single bowl of over-soggy cereal is all that Lucifer so generously left out for him. Originally, pouring the milk in advance was a tactic meant to motivate Belphegor to wake up for breakfast earlier, but it never worked. Instead he's only grown accustomed to eating mush.

He miserably jams his spoon in his breakfast cereal's bloated corpse and puzzles over what love means to a human.

* * *

Your morning also begins with sodden cereal and cold coffee. This is a pure coincidence and means nothing. You have many things on your mind.

You press your thumb into Belphegor's pact mark on your palm, watching the lines ripple almost lethargically. Like living creatures slithering beneath your skin, each pact mark seems to behave differently. The Sigil of Pride remains rigidly unmoving on your face, Greed pulses and throbs in tandem with your heartbeat, discontent with the space it occupies, the skinny interlocking lines of Envy tangle and twist on your thigh, never satisfied. Sloth sits stationary until you poke at it, and thus, it's quickly become your favorite.

Admittedly, that is not the only reason.

You could use it to summon him now. You could. Call upon the pact and drag him to this realm to meet with you again, face-to-face, with the last few sparks holed up in you.

But you are not a fool.

Dragging a powerful demon with a documented hatred for the human race to the point of defying his own nature to drive them to extinction into your apartment after a bitter argument for the sake of petty relationship drama... You don't imagine he would take too kindly to a summons, and surely neither would Lucifer or Diavolo. It would be a mistake, and you're not entirely sure how you would send him back.

With a scowl, you retrieve your D.D.D., hovering over Belphegor's name. 

> **MC**
> 
> mornin
> 
> **MC**
> 
> sorry about last night
> 
> **MC**
> 
> not for what i said but about how it ended up

Several minutes pass. He doesn't reply. You really fucked it up this time, but that is nothing new. That, or he is still sleeping, but you find less emotional catharsis in the probable.

You scrunch up your nose at the screen, and your eyes dart over to the awful Devildom candle reduced to a foul-smelling puddle on your nightstand. The wick is still in-tact, barely. It'll survive one more short burning. You sigh out all the air in your lungs and reach for your bag, digging out a book Solomon lent to you.

Perhaps you are a fool.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry 4 short chapter next and final one has some fucc


End file.
